Education Policy Design and Governance

Abstract

This panel is the first of two that examines education governance over time and comparatively (Europe/North America), how variation in governance enhances (or limits) integration, and the interaction between integration and other educational policy outcomes such as equality of access. Papers reflect on aspects of education governance such as population segregation, school choice, vocational/academic tracking, other services such as language training, age of compulsory schooling, early learning programs, and patterns of community involvement in school administration that affect student integration and ultimately student educational outcomes. The theoretical approach animating these panels is broadly historical institutionalist and comparative with a particular focus on policy feedback effects, where the impact of policy developed in time 1 affects the political landscape in time 2. Scholars (e.g. Mettler and SoRelle, 2014) have identified two types of feedback effects: resource effects and interpretive effects. Resource effects occur by shifting the availability of economic, social, and political resources to individuals and groups affected by policy and by shifting the incentives facing other political and social actors. The design of public policies also has interpretive effects: researchers have posited that public policies affect how one views oneself in relation to others and in relation to the state. The purpose of these series of Panels is to investigate comprehensively both types of policy feedback effects in education and, more specifically, to explore how forms of governance and group power affects integration via the educational system, particularly as it relates to integration and other educational outcomes.